Sony's new smartphones Xperia R1 Plus and R1 to be locally manufactured in India, Co partners with Foxconn

Electronics major Sony India will start local manufacturing of smartphones through contract maker Foxconn, in Sri City, Andhra Pradesh, as part of its Make in India initiatives.ETTelecom | Updated: October 30, 2017, 14:10 IST

NEW DELHI: Sony India appears to be attempting a re-entry into the cluttered yet competitive smartphone market in India on the back of locally made devices in partnership with the largest contract manufacturer in the world.

The Japanese electronics major will begin making two models in the Rs 12,000 to Rs 15,000 range – one of the fastest growing segments in the industry – in India from November through Foxconn’s India unit Rising Star Mobile India, which has five plants in Sri City, Andhra Pradesh.

Analysts say that Make in India alone won’t be enough for Sony to make a mark in the market where Chinese players have a majority share.

“Customer interest is exceedingly high in the smartphone category in India, particularly the mid-segment and we would like to leverage this demand with the launch of our mid-segment smartphones, exclusively for India,” said Kenichiro Hibi, managing director, Sony India.

“Sony India has always been committed to India market and supports the country’s direction such as Digital India and Make in India initiatives,” he added.The company which had a far larger presence and competitive phones a couple of years ago, has almost vanished from the frontlines and has ceded share to players like Samsung, Xiaomi, Oppo, Vivo, Lenovo and others, that make up the top ten, with far fewer launches than before. In August last year, the company said that its focus on phones would be lesser as its revenue from the segment as contribution to the overall company revenue, will drop by half in the fiscal ended March 2017, versus the year before. Only a handful of Sony’s Xperia models compete in the Indian market, most of which are in the premium segment.

Analysts said that for companies like Sony and LG, which have much larger presence in the consumer electronics segments such as televisions, audio systems and refrigerators, the way to claw back market share would be much tougher.

“Partnering with Foxconn could be a good comeback strategy for Sony in India, however, Make in India itself won't suffice,” said Prabhu Ram, head-industry intelligence group at Cybermedia Research.

“Sony would need to work on new product IPs that would allow it to distinguish itself from the hyper-competitive market. They would need to move beyond the music and sound era because in the 4G era, they would need to ramp up their offerings in the burgeoning media and entertainment domain,” he added.

Several people ET spoke with about Ericsson’s India operations, including its current and former employees, said the Stockholm-based firm has reduced headcount in the last one year or so across functions, in line with its global restructuring.